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The Fast And The Furious Franchise Is About A Car God’s Ascension

For years I’ve been using a mashup image of car spoilers to indicate when an article itself contains plot spoilers. Haha. Very humorous. Wordplay is fun. But for this post I mean it. Really.

This post contains plot spoilers!

Both types of spoilers will be present in this article. So if you don’t like having an entire franchise spoiled for you, or if the notion of Road-Bros getting totally sick traction on the concrete upsets you, turn back now.

Or just, you know, leave anyway so you can live a meaningful life without dumb fan theories wasting your time…

Dominic Toretto, AKA Dom, AKA Greazy D, is the son of a 1970’s Dodge Charger. I mean, we’re told that he had a father before Papa Toretto met a tragic death during a stock-car race, which led to Dom’s violent criminal record. But the character of Dom looks and acts like the masculine rumbles of an idling V-8 somehow congealed into a human baby. A baby who then grew the body of a prison thug, the hands of Rock Biter, some facial hair, and called it good at everything above the chin.

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For reference this is a promo photo of Vin Diesel from Fate of the Furious.

Dom even talks to his Charger, and all his meaningful conversations about Fambly happen in his shop around his Charger. For plot purposes this car is a stand-in for a father figure. It’s the classic mythological tale of Athena emerging from the head of Zues. Except Dom’s character slid out of a tailpipe.

Later, in Fate of the Furious, we discover that Dom has a son, which leads to Dom turning on his apostles in the hopes of recovering his baby (or micro stunt-double) from the clutches of Furiosa. In order to accomplish this Dom must turn his Fambly boner up to 10, put on a scary black mask for 10 seconds, and start kicking his own crew’s ass.

Did I mention apostles? Because the ascension of every deity involves…

Recruiting Apostles

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Dominic Toretto, knowing that he’s a deity, begins gathering his apostles early in the franchise. Like Gilgamesh wrestling his enemies into submission to ally them later, Dom goes about this by befriending all who wish him ill. Every villain who doesn’t immediately die from Dom’s mumble-growls will, after giving it consideration, fall in line behind His Metalness. This pays off for Dom in F8 when his apostles must join together in their steel chariots to shield their savior from a cloud of fire and brimstone. Skip to 3:05 for Maximum Apostle.

The first apostle we witness Dom recruiting happens in The Fast and The Furious #1, when he cultivates a bromance with Brian O’Connor, an undercover LAPD officer sent to take Dom down. Brian falls madly in love with Vindy-D and pulls a Point Break in the third act of the movie–enabling Dom’s initial escape from justice.

Later, Dom arm-grease-fights Hobbs, played by The “The Rock” Rock, who appears as a hyper-masculine, ultra tough member of the Special Forces or Green Berets or something equally exciting and cool…

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Wait, what?

However, not all of his apostles are fortunate enough to work boring, safe desk jobs like The Rock. Gal Gadot, for instance, falls from a cargo plane taxying at 13 miles per hour, killing her instantly, in a franchise where characters are generally immune to high-speed front-end collisions. And, during Tokyo Drift, mafia-man Han finally succumbs to a persistent tapeworm that has been sapping the nutrients from his digestive tract.

Okay, so Dom converts a crooked cop to The Order of Torque, along with a frustrated and engorged passport checker, a career assassin, two computer hackers, a Tokyo Drifter, and Ludacris, who plays Ludacris in the second movie–2Fast 2Ludacris.

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These brave men and women willingly give up their life of crime to follow Dom into hiding, forcing them to go undercover as mild-mannered car repairmen. Who then get back into crime to perform a heist in the name of Dom. Who later give it up again, fleeing the country to escape justice. Who are then asked by Lady Justice herself to do all of the crime again. And, in F7, after they’ve gained amnesty from the goverment for their previous crimes…

Wait…Now that I think on it, Dom is kind of like a cat who can’t decide if he wants inside or outside. This is the plot of roughly 75% of the movies. Except for the “Above Board” movies that occur concurrently when Dom is nowhere, yet ostensibly in the background, of both at once (Tokyo–Tokyo Drift, Miami–2Fast 2Furious).

I know I’m speculating wildly about his off-screen placement during these two movies, but I like to believe he was in two countries at once. Only gods can do that, right? And Dom is a car god. And all gods require…

Offerings

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Dom’s divine powers start off relatively mild in the first few movies. Early on he’s capable of deflecting punches with his face without bruising, making his car accelerate into blur-warp at the touch of a button, and jogging away from brutal fender-benders. As the franchise progresses, however, Dom is more demanding about the offerings of twisted steel made in his name. Through cult of personality he militarizes whole neighborhoods of the downtrodden. Said neighborhoods then give sacrament in the form of illegal races, which end in either the complete destruction of motor vehicle(s) or the blood of a driver.

Midway through his apotheosis we start to witness His divine street miracles. Once the masses begin to believe in him as their one true street savior, Dom is able to crack the earth with his boot-heel…

Survive high speed front-end car crashes without injury. Or, really, without limping or favoring a limb.

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When the EMTs showed up their hair fell out and their families were cursed for all-time.

His powers even allow him to drive already-destroyed flaming chariots backwards at terrible speeds.

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But his best trick, when Dom is at the height of his deific powers in the eighth and thus-far final installment of the franchise, he is able to perform his most impressive miracle yet. A miracle so incredible it made Mother Teresa stop doing card tricks and switch to torturing the poor. Dom, unthinkably, unbelievably, impossibly…was able to perform resurrection of the dead, and make us cry at the end of an aggressively mindless film series.

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I seriously didn’t want to cry during the writing of this article, hence the still image. But you can unleash your own tear torrent by watching the video below.